As Gearing is heading back towards the Research and Development department, he gets an alert on his pipbuck from the control system of the stable. He looks at the message and tilts his head as he reads the strange phrase in front of him aloud, “Crawler progress halted by obstruction in the air duct.”

He taps out a query, then snickers as he reads the next message, “Obstruction looks like pony ass.” He’s quite sure Sable has had at least some input into this description.

[Coloration and flank mark match description of Subject Gauge.]

Despite the humor, but not wanting to cause a full scale panic, he checks the tag location of Gauge and finds that the pipbuck does mark his as being in the general vicinity of the crawler drone. Somewhere in the civilian residential quarters nearest to the stable door. A quick query through Sable confirms there are no other entities on sensors that match Gauge’s description.

He figures the easiest way to be sure, without causing a full scale panic, is having a hair sample tested. Whether that would work or not he has no idea.

In the vent above his quarters, Gauge is looking down through the air vent hole at the door to his room, where the protectapony that was confining him had left. He looks around, nervously, not sure of what is best to do. Sure, he can just hop back down there again, and try to go about his business, but it could just be out there. Waiting. Stalking. Just long enough for him to make a mistake and get captured again.

He’s thoroughly paranoid and overreacting to a rather forceful request for privacy.

He knows he’s safe up here. The cables that they had used to restrain him can’t quite get him up here. He’s small enough that, though it is a bit cramped, he can actually move along the air duct. So. He’s safe. And secure. And nothing could possibly get the jump on him.

Until the drone Gearing had built skitters up behind him, and yanks out a few tail hairs rather unceremoniously.

Gauge is, quite understandably, rather sensitive about his ass and what gets put there, or taken from there as this case may be.

He flops around and tries to spin around to see what’s assaulting his chastity, but the duct is far too narrow for him to achieve such movement. Being terrified of being devoured from the rear up by some unknown monsters, he dives out of the air duct and stares up at the hole looking for his pursuer. But, the drone has already skittered away with its prize and is long gone before he even manages to squeeze out.

Gauge decides he’s had quite enough of this, and takes off at full speed towards the stable door. There’s some maintenance that needs to be done in the front area, but has been seen as low priority. Plus, he’s pretty lazy. But given the current circumstances he figures it’s best to be away from the others for a while. He doesn’t know what was trying to tickle his pickle, but he’s not interested in having any part of whatever is going on.

Things aren’t right in the stable. He’s not sure what it is. He’s positive that Swift and the others have secrets. And he doesn’t’ like it. Working on trying to fix the problems around the stable door will give time for him to think about it. In an area he doesn’t have to worry about something trying to eat his flank.

The drone doesn’t stop until it gets to an air vent near medical. Cure takes the hand off of the tail hairs, and returns to the medical bay for analysis. It doesn’t take long for her to compare the sample with one already on file, from when they were first admitted into the stable, and confirm that it is indeed Gauge. At least as much as they can tell.

This information is relayed to Gearing and he makes the decision not to tell Handy about this. There’s no reason to cause more panic and paranoia among the group. Causing dissension among a group was a tactic of warfare he was very well aware of. It was happening all over Equestria, and only got worse as the war went on.

The Ministry of Image really didn’t help matters with their over convoluted propaganda. Had everypony scared of their neighbors. Was getting to the point where some ponies were seeing enemies everywhere.

Whether there were any or not.

Instead he uses his limited authority, and relationship, to request a simple alert with the system. Keep active track of Gauge, and alert him if any other pony appears on sensors that matches Gauge. Normally this would be a ridiculous task, and be seen as a waste of resources to dedicate so many ponies to watching one individual without a seriously good reason.

But when your special somepony is a walking supercomputer capable of watching every camera in the stable, while grinding your back into a bulkhead, simultaneously… it’s not that big of a deal. Especially when her currency of choice is Gearing’s polished flank.

At that point, is going into debt such a bad thing? The dark blue little pegasus in his head nods sagely as he puffs on a tiny pipe while trying to look sophisticated.

Gearing hates it when the little pony’s right.

He grumbles to himself as his mind manages to climb away from the little pony in the gutter and comes to a realization. This is a very MoM style solution to this problem. He makes a note to himself not to let himself allow such past influences cause problems for him. He respected command, and followed protocols as required. Regardless if he personally agreed with them in their entirety. But that world’s gone, and now he doesn’t really have to answer to anybody. Except his own morale.

And the promise to that one mare from so long ago. Her and her ideals.

She may be gone but as long as he and those who believe as she did still breathe, she’s not forgotten. And her work to improve Equestria, for everypony, lives on. Through them. And their actions.

He shakes his head. Nostalgia is dangerous. It’s depressing. And while he might be able to help bring Equestria back to its former glory, he won’t be able to do anything if he keeps bogging himself down with the past. Yes. Learn from it. But don’t dwell on it. He stomps a hoof a few times as he tries to shake off the despairing thoughts running through his head. He doesn’t have time for this.

Like always, there’s a job to do, and he best get to it.

He sends a message to the drone to work around the obstruction, and continue with the protocol assigned to it. It sends back a bland confirmation and goes about its business, which, thanks to the way Gearing had coded it, does not include informing him that the ‘obstruction’ had already cleared out of the way and fled from the air ducts.

Gearing gets to the R&D department and starts working on another project. He pulls out some of the salvage from the Gunners that he’d killed, and lays out the equipment. The combat armor they had been wearing was of pretty decent quality. Some of it had been through some rough times, but all of them had been kept up on their repairs. However, none of that saved them from their date with their fate.

He begins repurposing the armor. With the number of Gunners there were, he has the choicest number of pieces to work from. Though it might be odd, he starts using the piece that is the most intact, and starts disassembling it and laying out its various components. With Sable at his side, helping wherever she can, Gearing modifies the suit of armor designed for an earth pony, to accommodate his own body. The areas around the wings are the biggest concern.

However, this larger set of armor was particularly necessary, because of the other modifications that needed to be made. It had to be raised off his metallic hide, and had to have more places for raised contact added. Being a clockwork, he has quite a few moving parts. And none of them could risk being halted by too much friction rubbing against the combat armor. What’s more, it could cause some serious problems for both the armor and his own gears if they rubbed against the armor and got wore down.

He’s experienced that before, and it’s not comfortable in the least. Like a clockwork version of a blister. A blister that can eat holes in your armor as well as being painful.

Once he’s done with his own suit, and confirms its fit and function, he sets it aside and starts working on a suit for Sable. She argues with him at first. That it’s not necessary. That she already has armor plating. That her entire chassis is reinforced.

He quiets her with a kiss, (It’s super effective!), and explains that he wants her to be as protected as possible. That more armor is better and that this’ll at least keep the nasty bugs off of her.

She pouts and admits, “The only one I wish to touch me is my darling Gearing…”

He gives her a nuzzle, then starts taking measurements. This change in action strikes her fancy and she overly strikes poses for him, letting him take the measurements he needs, but at the same time being unnecessarily distracting with her intentionally suggestive poses. Though she does make getting her hip measurements problematic by shaking her flank in his face the whole time.

After he’s managed to get what she needs, he gets back to working on the armor, despite his ears whistling and Sable giggling at him.

After he’s satisfied with the fit on Sable, he starts going through the rest of the equipment that he’d salvaged. Cleaning. Repairing. Organizing. The Gunners had quite an arsenal. An arsenal that is going to make an excellent start to the stable’s armory. He sets up an armor stand for his own equipment, but slings on a shoulder holster that he loads the 10mm that had been used by the R&D technician who chose to take their own life instead of letting themselves degrade any further. He figures at least in this way, it’ll have some better use despite its dark past ‘saving’ Butter Churn.

Besides, all of Equestria is a wasteland manifestation of ‘dark past’ at this point.

He also feels far better having a projectile weapon that can he can use as he’s running away. The stun rod, while powerful, is close range, not that great for taking on multiple opponents. It’s perfect for taking out lone rats while crawling around in maintenance tunnels. But not so much for a swarm of them that know where you are. As the giant Radroaches proved all too recently.

The one piece that seems out of character for him, is the long rifle that he takes extreme pains to make sure it is in fine working condition. Sable watches, with mounting interest, as he dismantles it, and puts it back together. He checks the action on it repeatedly, even making a modification to its slide action to get rid of a grinding hitch in it that he doesn’t like. To top it all off he screws on a suppressor to the end, and sets the rifle on a stand near his suit of armor. The spare ammo for it he keeps in his saddle bags. No reason to have to grab two things in an emergency if he can just be prepared enough to only have to grab the one.

Sable looks over his work and asks, as she’s looking at a currently disassembled group of pistols. “Gearing, darling,” she giggles as she turns to look at him as he’s carefully setting equipment in its place on the stand. “Is there anything you can not fix?”

“Myself,” he says flatly. Coldly. Having been in thoughts that were nowhere near his current location.

“Gearing?” she asks softly, with edging concern.

He shakes his head and looks at her. Then his eyes go wide as he realizes what was actually said. He gives her a smile and shrugs. “I mean… you know…”

She walks up to him and looks him in his eyes, nearly muzzle to muzzle, exploring his every micro-movement. She shakes her head lightly before saying, point black, “Gearing, you are not a broken pony.”

His grin shakes ever so slightly as his will to keep it there competes with the pang he feels in his chest.

He shakes his head and looks away, towards the table with all of the weaponry lying out. “Sable… there’s parts of me that I don’t like… Parts that I can’t stand. And parts that I’ve had a hard time even living with.” He reaches up a hoof and taps on the side of his head repeatedly, causing a clanging that echoes off the walls. “And this is the worst of it.” He flops down on his rear and looks at the floor as he mutters, “And I wasn’t even the one who did anything to deserve it. Hell, I don’t know what could have been so heinous to deserve being turned into…” He waves his forehooves at himself in disgust. “This.”

Sable looks him over, exploring his entire visage. She trots up, sits down in front of him, and nuzzles his neck, before giving his cheek a lick and replying, “I think you’re beautiful as you are.” She lets out a sigh and shrinks back a bit as she says softly, “I’m sorry I’m not a flesh and blood pony, Gearing. I’m sorry I cannot give you any children.” She leans forward putting her hooves on either side of him as she looks him in the eye point blank and practically begs, “But if you let me. I’ll do my best to make you the happiest stallion in all of Equestria. I promise. I’ll dedicate my life to making you happy.”

Gearing rolls his eyes then leans out and nuzzles her muzzle with his own. “You deserve to be happy too, Sable. Don’t just spend your life on that. You’re your own pony. You’re not some slave.” He leans further and gives her a kiss on the cheek. “I want you to do what it is that you want and makes you happy… Don’t just keep doing things because you think it’ll make me happy…” He groans and frowns as he clinches his eyes tight. “That includes the constant romps in the hay… You don’t need to do that just to keep me happy…”

He’d finally managed to say it. It’s been bugging him since the beginning of this roller coaster. But, on some level, he’s been worried about opening up that particular can of worms. Terrified would be a better explanation. Terrified that he’s been just using her like the stallions had used Nettlekiss before they all died. Terrified that she’d only been doing it as some sort of obligation she felt she needed to fulfill.

Terrified that she’d reduced her value to that, and nothing more.

There’s a long moment of silence that follows before Sable asks, “Do you not enjoy having sex with me, Gearing?”

“Th- that’s not what I was saying. I’m saying you need to focus on what you want and not just do what will make me happy,” he says with a groan.

“So you do like having sex with me?” she asks flatly.

Gearing smirks and shakes his head. “I’d be lying through my teeth if I said ‘no’.” He looks at her sideways and smirks. “And I think we both know that.”

She gets closer, pushing him backwards against the workbench, as she maintains eye contact. “But what if I like having sex with my beloved? What if making Gearing happy, is what makes me happy?”

Gearing breaks eye contact by looking to the side and muttering. “I just don’t want you to do it because you think you have to…”

She grabs his head with both forehooves and turns it to look at her forcefully. She gives a snort and glares at him a moment. “I. Want. To.” She turns her head so they are resting their foreheads against each other and she’s looking directly into his eyes. “Remember, Gearing… you are the one that keeps telling me ‘No’…” She lets go and looks off to the side as she says sheepishly, “If anything it would be more like… you’re only doing it… to make me happy.”

Gearing’s eyes jump around for a few moments as he tries to think of some kind of logical argument to make. But he can’t. All he can think of at the moment is the rather hurt looking mare in front of him. He swallows hard as he tries to gather the words to ask her to make sure she really is doing everything of her own volition. “So, you want to have sex?”

But, the words didn’t really come out right, and his intended question is entirely misinterpreted.

“Yes!” she yells happily before clamping her muzzle to his in a kiss that prevents him from saying anything further. His forehooves wave around as he tries to keep balance as he slams into the worktable, but she directs him sideways and down to the ground as she climbs over him. However, the impact into the workspace causes the pieces of equipment to scatter out of their predetermined spots, jumbling together in a mess that will be a problem to sort out all over the table, them, and the ground.

But Sable doesn’t care at the moment. She’s not only received permission, but an actual request. And Sable is a mare that delivers!

While Sable is using Gearing to put a nice polish on the floor of the R&D department, Gauge continues to work in the stable entrance on the variety of systems that are on his task list. On the side, not far from the primary door, he opens up a panel that has been flagged for review. There’s something causing a drain on the systems in this area, but the cause is unknown. The best the system is able to trace is to this panel.

He climbs in, having most of his body inside of the tight space and begins trying to trace all of the various cables and conduits. After he’s gotten through half of the connections, and still hasn’t found anything, he starts working his way upwards, and moving the bundles of cables next to him that run upwards.

His efforts are rewarded with a shower of dust and debris. Gauge pulls back out, coughing, sputtering, and wiping his eyes. He looks over at what had fallen down, and his eyes jump to their largest as he screams.

A clutter of bones lies mixed with some mostly decayed fabric and, judging by the size, they were quite small. Possibly even foalish. He scoots back in absolute terror, staying low to the ground and backing up under a desk as he continues to scream uncontrollably. As soon as his flank smacks into the cold metal of the underside of the desk, he taps on his pipbuck that there’s been a murder, and he needs help at the front door.

Naturally, with such a message, Handy and Swift hurry to the stable entrance with the horde of protectaponies all armed with their weapons. Handy sends out a message for everypony to respond, in an attempt to find out who’s been harmed. And one pony doesn’t respond.

But Sable replies on his behalf that he is quite well at the moment, just too busy to respond.

Swift and Handy run to the entrance, and slowly peek around the corner, their eyes jump around as they continue to hear Gauge’s scream. There’s a slight pause as the scream abruptly stops. They look at each other and their eyes narrow as they start walking forward expecting to have to pummel somepony into jelly.

But then, Gauge’s voice seems to have picked up right where it left off, screaming at full tilt. Now that he’s taken in a breath big enough to continue to do so.

Swift and Handy fan out, with the protectaponies, and Swift jumps over the consoles and cabinets to land on the desk that Gauge is hiding under. He looks up at her and screams a slightly different pitch, but then points a shaking hoof at the panel opening as he resumes his monotoned scream.

Handy walks by and looks at Gauge, as Swift hops down from the desk, then rolls his eyes and asks, “Will you shut up already! We’re here! Who’s been murdered?!”

“This foal…” Swift’s voice comes quietly as she looks in at the discombobulated pile of bones inside and littering the floor.

Handy goes over and looks at it, then looks between Swift and Gauge. “What makes you think it was murdered?”

Gauge throws both hooves out towards it in disbelief. “You really think the foal crammed his own body into a sealed access port after he died?!”

Swift looks at Handy with a raised eyebrow then shrugs a general agreement to the assessment. Handy looks at it again then waves a hoof at the protectaponies to stand down. “Well this had to of happened a long time ago… There’s no threat now.”

Gauge looks at him flabbergasted. “No threat!? There’s a dead body in the maintenance panel!”

Handy waves a hoof dismissing him. “Yes. I know. I’ll have Cure come gather it up and properly dispose of it…”

Swift looks at the remains, then over at Handy as she rubs a hoof on her other foreleg nervously. “Handy… I would like to give it a burial. It’s the least we can do for it.”

Handy lets out a sigh and nods. “Right.” He gives her a forced smile and nods back towards the rest of the stable. “Come on. We’ll take care of it once Cure’s done analyzing it.”

As Swift is walking back Handy looks over towards the desk and says, “Gauge, go ahead and take a break until Cure’s done. You don’t know what’s in those remains and you don’t want to get sick.”

Gauge yells out in indignation, “I want a bath! It’s all over me! Uhg… I think I can taste it!”

Handy snickers and continues on, nodding his head to Cure as she shoots past him. She quickly starts gathering up the bones, laying them out nearby as she counts out and organizes the bones into a full skeleton.

The entire time Gauge stays cowering under the desk.

Until Cure beeps out an error then comments, “Skeleton of foal colt incomplete.” She turns over towards Gauge and asks, “Please come here so that I may assess if there are any lost pieces on your person.”

Gauge scrambles out from under the desk towards her, low to the ground as he looks at her in pure terror.

Which is only magnified when she grabs the skull he’d been wearing as a tiny hat, and sets it with the rest of the skeleton, along with a pair of small bones from a crease between his neck and his barding.

Cure chirps an affirmative and success before saying happily, “Foal colt now identified as unicorn. Skeleton remains complete.”

Gauge lets out a long wretched fart that gives him a bit of propulsion, aiding him in his kicking into high gear as he goes running down the hall screaming in a bee line for the decontamination chamber. He jumps into the chamber, and hops around in it, throwing off all of his barding and saddle bags as he asks to be decontaminated repeatedly. All while screaming in abject terror and fouling the air with his nervous gas.

Since he had fled so fast, and was too terrified to really pay attention to anything other than getting away anyway, Gauge misses his chance at being the only living pony to witness a strange event.

After the skeleton was placed together, and the skull put into its proper place, the skull itself began radiating magic. Cure, unsure of what to do in this situation, monitored and logged the event as it transpired. The remains, such as they were, drew together, and shrink into a mass of red light. Then, the head slowly emerges from it. Before Cures robotic eyes the skull fills in and covers with tissue, then skin, and finally hair begins sprouting. This process continues from the horn tip, radiating out and down, until there on the ground, is a newborn foal unicorn colt with a brilliant red pelt. Curled up and apparently sleeping.

Cure immediately informs Handy of the arrival of a new foal. Which he is completely confused with as he tries to figure out who was pregnant. After getting a run down of the course of events he orders Cure to take it to the medical bay, and add it to the foalsitting roster while they try to figure out what’s going on.

Sable, having access to all of the communications going on in the stable, grudgingly informs Gearing of what has transpired, even as she’s sitting on him and showing no real desire of stopping. To her chagrin, her estimations of his response proved true: as he signaled the end of their fun for the time being and deemed this important enough to demand his attention.

He starts cleaning up the mess around the workbench, with Sable helping to gather the pieces back onto the table as fast as she can. Her hope that getting the job done faster would lead to them being able to resume their activities is dashed as he messages Swift and asks her to join them.

As he’s putting together the last of the pistols that he’d taken apart, and has laid them out with the others on the table like a fine display of death dealing, Swift walks in through the decontamination door.

She gives a nod towards Sable, and then walks around, keeping her distance a bit, as she looks at what Gearing’s doing. After getting sight of his collection she gives a light whistle and asks, “You starting a store down here or something?”

Gearing looks at her and grins. “More like an armory. Any of these pieces you think you’ll need?” He steps back and starts moving some boxes closer to her as her eyes are drifting over the various weaponry. Gearing slides the lid off the box and sets it to the side so she can see inside of it.

Swift looks at the firearms and shakes her head. “I’m not good with guns. I prefer my hooves.” She holds up her powerhoof and gives it a light shake before setting it down. “And… I’ve always found that kind of armor rather confining,” she says as she looks at the combat armor in the box.

Gearing shrugs and trots over to the workbench as he says, “Well, something is better than nothing. Never know when it’ll make the difference between life and death. Just wanted you to know it was an option.”

Swift walks around, looking at the various items, and taking in the hoard of armor and weapons. She waves a hoof at all of it. “W- where’d you get all of this? You couldn’t have made all of this from scratch?”

Gearing nickers. “I most certainly could have…” He turns around and heads to a filing cabinet to fetch out some designs he’s written on the back of some of the old propaganda posters. “If I had the right supplies… but no. I just refurbished these.” As he fans out the plans to lay them on the workbench Swift catches enough of a glimpse on the back side to read the ‘You don’t need to be a Steel Ranger to be a Hero!’ before it’s laid face down and the plans are made visible.

Gearing uses a few of the pistols as paperweights on the corners as he says with a chuckle, “They were kindly donated to the Stable 68 Defense fund by a friendly group of Gunners that decided they didn’t need them anymore.”

Swift snickers then kick-slides the box across the floor to where a group of like boxes sit neatly stacked. “Better in our hooves than theirs.”

Gearing looks at her sideways and grins. “My thoughts exactly!”

She walks over and looks at the plans on his workbench. The drawings are horrible. Not to scale as far as she can tell. And seem to be more like a scavenger’s shopping list. She tilts her head, not able to make heads nor tails of it before she looks at Gearing and asks, “Was that all, or did you want something else?”

Gearing turns around and partially sits on the workbench as he points past her. “Handy’s already agreed that we need to retake the lower levels, I’m not sure if he’s talked to you about it or not…?”

Swift bobs her head around. “That’s been on the list for a while, yeah.”

Gearing folds his arms and asks, “What do you think about making a small excursion down there? Nothing huge. More of a fact finding mission than anything. Of course, we’ll take out anything we can while down there. But the primary goal is just to find out what is down there, and figure out what we’re going to need to fix it.”

Swift narrows her eyes at him for a moment, and then tilts her head. “Why are you asking me?”

Gearing grins. “Well. Who else could convince Handy to loan us the protectaponies?” He waves his hooves quickly. “I don’t want them just charging down there, that’d be stupid.” He taps on his own chest as he says, “I mainly want them for backup… I’ll sneak around down there and see what we can see, but if I run into something I can’t handle I’d like to have a firing squad ready to provide cover for my retreat.”

Swift purses her lips to the side for a moment before she says, “I’m coming too.”

Sable echoes the sentiment, “I shall accompany my darling Gearing as well.”

Gearing slaps a hoof over his eyes and says with a groan, “Handy’s not going to let you do that, Swift.”

Swift’s nostrils flare and she takes a step towards him, pounding her powerhoof into the ground as she screams, “He’s not going to ‘let’ me do shit! I’m a grown ass mare and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let any stallion, even Handy, tell me when and where I can go! I’m going!”

Sable, in an adorable act of mimicry follows suit, stomping her hoof into the ground and stepping towards Gearing from the other side. “What she said!”

Swift shakes her head hard and says with a grumble, “I’m tired of everyone else worrying about me and my foals. I can protect my family. If I can handle having three foals I think I’d know how to handle the pain of a little bug bite!”

Sable shakes her head in the same manner, then opens her mouth. But nothing comes out. She pauses and withdraws a bit as she grinds a forehoof into the ground and says sheepishly, “I do not have any foals to compare this to… But I still wish to help.”

Swift looks at her sideways and snickers a bit.

Gearing holds up his forehooves in front of himself defensively, one pointed at each of them. “Okay, calm down you two.” He looks at Swift. “Fine. But you handle Handy on that. I’m not getting in the middle of anypony else’s relationship. I have enough trouble just trying to navigate the waters with this one.” He nods his head towards Sable before turning to look at her. “And if you keep looking that adorable, I’m going to have to kiss you.”

Sable grins widely, then exaggerates the pose, batting her eyes at him as she tries to call his bluff.

Gearing looks back at Swift and says, “We’ll do this.” He looks over at Sable and smiles lightly. “All of us.” Which elicits a happy giggle from Sable as she continues trying a variety of poses to top her previous cute level. He looks back and forth as he says, straight faced, “But we’re going to do it my way. Alright? And this part is non negotiable. Or I’m not going to have any part of it and I’ll be damned if I’m going to rush down there to save anypony that does what I told them not too and get themselves tail deep in the muck.”

Mostly a lie. He’d probably do it anyway.

“Oh yeah?” Swift scowls at him and asks, “What’s your idea mister smart guy?”

Gearing points a hoof at her. “I don’t really know your abilities very well. But you don’t strike me as the ‘quiet’ type. We go slow, and not rush into anything. We stay in constant communication, and we work together. When I say fall back, we fall back. None of this ‘I can handle it!’ or ‘In a minute!’ bullshit. I’ve seen too many ponies lose their lives to that nonsense. It’s amateurish and, frankly, fucking stupid. Retreat means retreat; we’ll decide locations as we go.”

The scowl fades from Swift’s face as she looks him over. This isn’t the first time something he’s said or done has struck a chord with her. There’s just something about it that seems off… too practiced. Like he’s had too much practice with this sort of thing. Though he is a quick thinker. Obviously. Arcano-technology brains are probably a marvel at what they can figure out. It’s no wonder they had him dedicated to fixing stables. With everything that could possibly go wrong with a stable, having someone able to quickly come up with a solution, then keep said solution stored for later use and recall was probably resources well spent. “Alright,” Swift says finally. “We’ll try this your way.” She puts her powerhoof in his face. “But if you try and betray me down there, I’ll knock your head straight to Luna. Understand?”

Sable’s head whips to look at Swift and a scowl appears as all four of her hooves start to grind into the floor plating. All attempts at being cute entirely abandoned in preparation for having to defend Gearing.

Gearing smirks and actually chuckles at Swift. To her face. As if her hoof wasn’t even there. “Swift… if you really bothered to even learn anything about me, you’d find out pretty quickly just how much I value loyalty.” He leans towards her, right next to the hoof, and says with direct eye contact, “And you’d figure out just how much my loyalty is worth.”

Swift scoffs and pulls back her hoof as she straightens up. “And just how is anypony supposed to do that?”

Gearing waves his hoof around and steps away from the workbench. “How about giving me a fucking chance? What happened to the trust I earned sticking the Gunners six feet under?”

Swift sits back and puts her forehooves about an inch from each other as she smirks. “I’d said ‘a bit’… I’m here willing to go down there with you, aren’t I?”

Gearing points a hoof with his mouth open to say something. But then closes it. He gives it a moment’s thought, then sits back and shrugs as he smirks. “You know what? Fuck it, you’re right. Let’s do this.”

Sable steps between them, shooting Swift a dagger eyed stare before turning her head towards Gearing. “Ex-cuse me? If there’s any ‘fucking’ in this plan, it will be my flank getting Gearing’s sweet polish. Not Subject Swifts!”

Both Swift and Gearing slap a hoof over their face.

Swift quickly turns and leaves, shaking her head at what had just transpired. “I’ll go get the protectaponies. Meet me at the ramp to the lower levels.”

Swift starts picking up the pace as Sable asks with a partial whine, “Am I not enough anymore? Would you prefer if somepony else joined? I’m always ready, you know that, right, Gearing, my beloved?”

Swift begins slapping the button for the decontamination chamber door as quickly as she can, alternating hooves as she tries to get out of there. This isn’t a conversation she wants to be hearing. Not a conversation she wants to be a part of. She hops in, closes it behind her, then stands on the other side trotting in place until the other door opens. As soon as it does she runs as fast as she can through it.

Not her business. Nope. Although she does have a morbidly curious little voice in her heard scratching its chin wondering how robots do it. But not her business, so she runs and leaves that mystery to be solved another day. Like the day after never.

Gearing snickers as he sees Swift bid a very hasty, and nearly panicked, retreat. He turns his gaze back to Sable to find her looking even more cross and hurt. She’s not happy with his eyes on somepony else. He asks with a smirk, “Whatever happened to that ‘looking cute’ like you were trying to a moment ago?”

She narrows her eyes, obviously not falling for the diversionary tactic as she waits for him to actually answer her questions.

He sighs then leans in towards her and smiles lightly. “No, Sable. I don’t want Swift. Or anypony else for that matter. I have you.” He shrugs with his forehooves up in the air then starts giggling uncontrollably. “You’re more than I can handle as it is. Why would I ruin that?”

She explores his face for a moment before asking in a near pout, “Promise?”

“Uh huh,” Gearing replies with a huge grin.

She lights up and trots in place excitedly for a moment. Then she pauses and tilts her head as she looks at him. “Well… If you do want anypony else… I’ll only allow it if I can join in. I want my beloved Gearing happy, but I won’t just give him away.”

Gearing chuckles and shakes his head. “Well, lucky you, because I’m a one mare stallion.” He taps a hoof on his chest. “So, sorry, you’re stuck with me.”

She grins widely and hops up and down. Then she saunters a bit, tosses her mane around so it’s half lying over her face and shoulder then slants her shoulder seductively as she looks at him. “Is this cute enough for you, my love?”

His eyes go wide at the sight, but he can’t help but chuckle. He leans towards her and grins. “I think you’re cute however you are, but, yeah, that’s pretty darn cute.” And he gives her a kiss on the cheek that he runs up to her ear where he gives it a light lick.

She giggles but then spins around and sticks her flank high in the air, right in front of his face. She looks over her shoulder at him and grins as she says, “Prove it.” Then moves her tail and leaves absolutely nothing to the imagination anymore.

He stands gawking for a moment, then gets a mischievous grin on his face as he decides to call her on this bluff, and try something… new.

Sable’s eyes go to their widest, and every single camera in the area whips to focus attention on them, as he gives her a very tongue-y kiss like she’s yet to experience. In a place she’d yet to be kissed at all. Suddenly a lot of what she’d seen between Nahlah and Ivy makes much more sense to her. Especially Nahlah’s reactions. She settles into his care with her head laying sideways on the floor while looking back at him. She smiles and closes her eyes as she giggles out, “I love you, Gearing!” Then her eyes shoot open as she lifts her head and looks back in genuine confusion. “How is your tongue- Oh! Well! That’s- That’s very nice!” She lays her head back down and lets out, in a long slow sigh, “Veeerryyy niiiiice.”

Footnote: Internal Monitoring component beginning diagnostic. . .

This chapter has some interesting tidbits in it. The proverbial skeletons in the closet have a physical manifestation in this one. And, like previous chapters, it's going to have some far reaching consequences.

Timeline work progresses and has definitely hit the point of just making sure everything lines up well enough for things much further along with the story. Thanks for the encouragement and help!

-Quillsy